E3G

Keynote Address to European Environmental Bureau

By Chris Littlecott

Europe’s continued prosperity requires leadership on sustainable development

There are three core propositions underlying what I am going to say about why Europe’s continued prosperity requires leadership on sustainable development: 

Firstly, for too long the environment community has been forced into a defensive debate over whether there is a trade-off between protecting the environment and European competitiveness. In a world of accelerating climate change and $60-70 oil these arguments have no relevance, and this debate needs to be reframed. The European and global economy cannot continue to generate genuine wealth without rapidly improving resource and energy productivity, and implementing these policies brings benefits today.

Secondly, environmental and resource limits are now at the heart of geo-politics, economics and security policy. Europe needs to become a global leader in driving cooperative sustainable development if it is to preserve the conditions for its own future prosperity. This is not philanthropy, but a matter of core strategic interest for Europe.

Thirdly, Europe uniquely has the political and economic assets to take this leadership role. However, these assets cannot be mobilised without economic confidence across Europe, as this is need to underpin political support for an expansive and global agenda in areas such as climate change, resource efficiency, energy security and neighbourhood policy.

Though we have all argued for “mainstreaming environmental issues” and achieving “policy coherence” for years, it is only now that environmental and resource constraints are really biting that this is becoming a political and policy reality.

But just because environmental drivers are beginning to be recognised in other policy areas, it does not necessarily result in the type of co-operative, preventive and human-centred approaches the sustainable development community has been promoting. Policy makers in the security, diplomatic, energy, economic areas are as likely to respond to these challenges in a defensive, reactive, short –term and exclusionary manner. Building walls to manage environmental migration; making diplomatic deals to secure resource supplies; applying sticking plaster humanitarian responses to conflict and natural disasters.

I have recently had discussions with military planners in several major countries on the issue of climate change and future conflict; this has confirmed their growing interest in “hard security” responses to what we still think of as an environmental issue.

Only by fully engaging in these policy debates and showing the relevance of stronger environmental and resource policy for achieving security and prosperity, will the types of outcomes we want be achieved. The following discussion is an attempt to do this, focusing on the economic challenges facing Europe.